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Abstract

This thesis is written within the field of Norwegian as a second language and examines
whether the influence of the mother tongue can be said to be applicable to clause combining and
text structure (transfer). The study draws on theory from research on second language writing and
Contrastive Rhetoric. The main informants were 17 adult Arabic native speakers. In addition I had a
control-group of 5 adult English native speakers, and a Norwegian reference-group of 10 Norwegian
native speakers. Each informant wrote 2 texts each of argumentative text type in Norwegian. Both
the Arab and English informants’ proficiency
level in Norwegian lies between level A2 and B2 / C1 / level 3 exams at university level.

Based on findings in previous research on English second language texts written by Arab
learners of English, I have examined: the use of coordinated clauses vs. subordination, use of the
conjunction «og» (and), as well as text structure, focusing on the length of the introduction in
the texts. In a close analysis of texts from some of the Arab informants I have also
examined traits as repetition, parallelism and the use of comparison.

In the analysis of coordinated clauses (vs. subordination) it was expected to find a higher use
of coordinated clauses vs. subordination among the Arab informants compared to the other
groups, but this was not confirmed in the present analysis.

Findings in the analysis of the conjunction «og» (and) confirm a possible transfer from Arabic
in one of the writing tasks. Despite a high use of the conjunction «og» (and) by both the low
proficiency and the higher proficiency Arab groups, the overall use of clause connectors
suggests that the proficiency in Norwegian also can play a part.

The analysis of text structure shows that the Arab informants tend to spend a long
introduction in the text, often over half the length of text. As this is a typical trait of Arabic
text structure, it could indicate influence from the mother tongue. In a close analysis of the
texts from some of the informants, it was possible to find traits of repetition, parallelism and
comparison in the texts, which according to the literature are typical traits of rhetorical
patterns in Arabic. These traits in the texts suggest that transfer on text-level manifests itself
here.